Tarkine decision could spell death of mining

LOCKING up the Tarkine would eventually kill an industry worth more to Tasmania than farming, seafood, and machinery and transport exports combined. That is according to miners growing increasingly concerned for the future as efforts to heritage list the large North-West area continue. "Now, the environment movement is pushing to transform the multi-use reserves into exclusionary categories - which would preclude any economic activity - including mineral exploration and mining," Tasmanian Minerals Council Land Management Committee chair and geologist Kim Denwer said in the mining industry body's recent annual report. "It would be a toxic result for the mining industry." Environmentalists have resumed a push for emergency national heritage listing of the Tarkine, with a view to permanent listing, then a national park in future. Mr Denwer said it was obvious if land could not be accessed for mineral exploration, economic ore bodies for the industry's future could not be found. "As the current mines are mined out or become uneconomic, the industry will wither and die." He said the forecast was not good. "The environment movement, by and large, has been successful in its ongoing campaigns and wins increment by increment from processes such as the Regional Forest Agreement, the subsequent Community Forest Agreement and now the Inter- Governmental Agreement on forestry and the heritage assessment by the Australian Heritage Council of the Tarkine." "Taken together, these latest threats hold the promise of pushing us out of the fraction of Western Tasmania which remains for exploration."